Eric Benny

Eric Benny (Born 7 November 1978) is a former footballer and manager of the Indian National team. He was born in Delhi, and attended school at St Columbus in New Delhi and Delhi University. He worked as a footballer, coach and manager for both I – League club, Indian Arrows and the Indian National team.

Benny started his career early, representing the Delhi State in 1992. He played in the senior level while continuing his academics.

Playing career

In 1996 Benny started his professional career at the National and club level. He spent a year playing at professional outfit Salgaocar F.C.. During this stint, he was selected to play for the Indian National Team. A career-ending injury took him out the following year and he had to retire.

In 1999, Benny began working with Fortune 500 organisations such as Citibank, IBM, NIIT, SkyCom, Convergys and EXL. He spent 11 years working under a corporate structure.

Managerial career

In 2010, Benny moved to an administrative role as the General Manager of the I-League club, Indian Arrows (now Pailan Arrows) which was then the Indian U-23 Olympic squad as a professional outfit. Later that year, he managed the Indian national team and took them to the Asian games at Guanzhou and the 2012 Olympic qualifiers.

In 2012 when he made a decision to move on from the All India Football Federation and invest in preparing young Indian players for professional football through a series of initiatives.

Benny is founder and Chief Executive of Eric Benny Sports Management, which he started in 2012 to develop various projects to nurture the growth of Indian Football.

In 2012, the company announced a partnership with the French football club, FC Metz. The partnership set up the opportunity for young Indian footballers to work and train with the French club professionally. Football club de Metz, a Ligue 1 outfit has produced players such as Franck Ribery, Papiss Cissé, Robert Pirès, Emmanuel Adebayor, Louis Saha and Miralem Pjanić.

In 2014, Sunil Chhetri, the captain of the Indian National team and I-league club, Bengaluru FC was announced as the Brand Ambassador of Eric Benny Sports Management.

Benny introduced 4v4 leagues in different regions across India. The first version was started Delhi and moved to different parts such as Agra, Jaipur, Musssorie, Dehradun, Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai. 4v4 leagues were adopted to help players develop their ability and skills in tighter spaces. Benny believes that this format is the way forward for Indian football.

"My Chance (2013)" was another initiative for Under-13 and Under-15 age groups from across schools, clubs and NGOs which allowed players and teams to compete amongst each other in New Delhi and the NCR region. Four Players were sent to the FC Metz(France) academy to train for a month, which was sponsored by Eric Benny Sports Management. "My Chance" aimed at the opportunity for young players and coaches to help promote the game and to foster upcoming football talent.

"Eric Benny Foundation" was started in the year 2012 with the objective to raise awareness and interest of football amongst the ‘not so privileged’ and provide them a professional platform to pursue their dreams. The Foundation stands for ‘Football for Change’ and encourages fans, followers and benefactors to support the mission through donations and other benevolent activities. Some of the proceeds collected by the foundation go to various non-profit organisations that work for the betterment of underprivileged children living in the slums.